Meet Joshua Hsu

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joshua Hsu, Portfringe’s Co-Festival Director, a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Joshua, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?

PortFringe is and has always been run entirely by volunteers. From festival co-directors to the box office to artist management, we do this for no compensation. We do this because we love the arts, supporting the arts, and seeing young and emerging artists succeed. We believe that our generosity and our ability to give invites reciprocity among artists, strengthens bonds in our community, and expands our understanding of the arts.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m a theatre director, producer, and storyteller, and I currently serve as one of the festival co-directors for PortFringe, Maine’s Fringe Festival

PortFringe pushes the boundaries of performing arts by nurturing artists, encouraging them to innovate, cultivating an inclusive and welcoming community, and providing space and opportunities to share unique experiences with a diverse audience.

For the past twelve years, we have hosted a yearly weeklong festival that invites artists worldwide to present innovative, boundary-pushing art in traditional and non-traditional performances throughout the Portland, Maine, area.

At PortFringe, we take pride in our role of finding and providing venues for artists, handling their ticketing, and meeting their needs. This allows them to focus on what they do best: performing.

Moreover, all the funds we have made from performances are returned to the artist (barring a simple service fee to cover ticketing costs).  During the year, we host “pop-up” events that allow local artists to feature themselves and help fund the festival for the coming year.

We’re in the process of building next year’s pop-up events and festival, so we’ll be sure to share more news soon!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Trust is the essential component of success in a volunteer-only organization. No single member can do it alone. We each bring unique skills to the table, and we must trust each other to leverage those skills and execute the tasks necessary for the caliber of the festival we expect.

Likewise, as a volunteer organization, we share in our decision-making process openly and equitably so that we ensure we fulfill our shared vision. Everyone has good ideas, and we welcome them all. But our decision-making often results from how we can best serve our organization’s purpose: Do our choices uplift our artists? Does it support our community? Does it meet our shared vision?

As a committee, we’re also not afraid to ask each other for help, and we respect each other’s boundaries. It’s easy to burn out volunteering all the time, and so we tend to flow from role to role as each member’s commitments shift or change or when some people need to recharge.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

We’re always looking for volunteers to help with the festival and beyond! We’d love to learn more about you and how you’d like to support us!

Feel free to e-mail us at [email protected]

Contact Info:

• Website: https://portfringe.com
• Instagram: @portfringe
• Facebook: [email protected]

Image Credits

The PortFringe Committee Photo:
Doane Dorchester
Jessie Dumais
Joshua N Hsu
Allison Johnston
Stacey Koloski
Max Kyros
Tara McDonough
Hollie Pryor
Johnny Speckman

Other pictures of audience, various local venues: Three of Strong Spirits, Rising Tide Brewery, and Freedom’s Edge Cider.

Alliston Johnston presenting Pop-up
Sad Clown: Tyler Costigan in the Semi-Darkness Place